The various enemies that the Nephite armies had to meet, from time to time, on the field of battle--Lamanites, Amulonites, Amalekites, Zoramites, Gadianton robbers, etc.-- were very differently equipped for their bloody work. Those who had dissented from the Nephites naturally held to the same tactics, used the arms and protected their bodies with the same armor as the people to whom they had turned traitors. With the original Lamanites it was different. At first, when they came against the Nephites they were clothed with a short skin girdle about the loins, and with their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow and the cimeter and axe. The dissenters, while armed and equipped like the Nephites, set a mark upon themselves by which they might be known and distinguished on the battle field. In doing this they unconsciously fulfilled the word of the Lord to their fathers. Thus, the followers of Amlici, the would-be king, marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites, though they did not shave their heads as did the direct descendants of Laman (B. C. 87). The description of the Gadianton robbers, as they appeared when prepared for war (A. C. 18), is a very terrible one: They were girded about after the manner of robbers; and they had a lamb-skin about their loins, and they were dyed in blood, and their heads were shorn, and they had head-plates upon them: and great and terrible was the appearance of the armies of Giddianhi, because of their armor and because of their being dyed in blood. CHAPTER LVIII. THE LAWS OF THE NEPHITES--THE ROMAN AND NEPHITE CIVILIZATIONS--THE LAWS UNDER THE KINGS--POSITION OF THE PRIESTHOOD--SLAVERY--CRIMINAL OFFENSES. If the existence of wise, just and liberal laws, administered in righteousness, be the rule by which we can judge of the true greatness of a nation and of the happiness and prosperity of its citizens, then the Nephites were a far happier and more prosperous people than were their contemporaries on the eastern continent. If this be not so, then we have not read history aright.